Climate & Energy Blog

Friends of the Earth applauds Congressional leaders' call for President Obama to halt Keystone XL review until Inspector General report is made public

Posted Dec. 12, 2013 / Posted by: Kate Colwell

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In response to a letter from 25 Congressional leaders to President Obama on the State Department's review of the Keystone XL pipeline, Friends of the Earth Senior Campaigner Ross Hammond issued the following statement:

“We applaud Rep. Grijalva and other members of Congress for sending this important message to President Obama. The conflicts of interest in the State Department’s tainted review of Keystone XL have become so obvious that the only reasonable choice is for the Inspector General to be given a chance to finish his job before the environmental review is completed.

“While ERM claimed on its application that it had no conflicts of interest, we now know that ERM lied to get the job. ERM’s work for TransCanada and over a dozen oil companies with a financial stake in the pipeline being built should have disqualified it. These facts should be enough to call into question ERM’s disputed analysis of the environmental impacts of the pipeline.

“President Obama came into office promising the most transparent government in history. We expect him to live up to his word and make sure that Keystone XL is fairly evaluated.”